LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



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I 



SHORT LESSONS 

IN 

THEOSOPHY 



COMPILED AND ARRANGED BY 



MISS SUSIE C. CLARK, 



FROM THE TEACHINGS OF 



W. J. COLVILLE. 



^YOFCO/v Q 
^ COPYRIGHT ' 

FEB 251889 



CAMBRIDGEPORT, MASS. : 
PUBLISHED BY S. C. CLARK. 
1889. 



P 0^ 



Entered according to Act of Congress in the yeai 1889. 
By S. C. Clark, 
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington, D. C. 



Electrotyped and printed by R. H. Blodgett, 
30 Bromfield Street, Boston. 



SHORT LESSONS IN THEOSOPHY. 



Ques. — What is true Theosophy? 

Ans. — Theosophy is the master-key of eternity to the under- 
standing of God and man. True Theosophy is a question of 
spiritual development, of soul revelation, of finding the Christ 
within, listening to the Divine Logos — the Word. When we 
can find God within, where both Jesus and Buddha say God 
resides, we realize our divine nature. Genuine Theosophy is the 
Christ of this truth rising out of the tomb of error, it is the doc- 
trine of self-control, the crucifixion of the senses, the liberation 
of the spirit from passion, the resurrection of all that is divine 
within us. Theosophy is a spiritual science, it is a knowledge 
of the eternal true science, to know the Christ, the living Word 
which speaks from the Infinite Divine Being. The spirit is 
resurrected, there is henceforth no more death. The true The- 
osophist drinks his inspiration from the spiritual air, and knowl- 
edge of the universe becomes to him an open book. We out- 
grow sacerdotalism, we become true priests, our daily sacrifice 
the daily surrender of the lower to the higher nature. 

Ques. — What is the Theosophical doctrine as a religion ? 

Ans. — The doctrine of Theosophy is Love, Wisdom, and 
Truth, the absolute purity and perfection of the divine nature. 
Theosophical truth is universal truth and universal religion — a 
demonstrated science ; it holds the key to all the sciences and 
religions of the world. In Theosophy we approach the unity 



4 



SHORT LESSONS IN THEOSOPHY. 



of all religions, for Theosophy studies all religions, but teaches 
none. What does religion really mean ? Religio — to bind 
together — implies a condition of bondage ; it is a bondage in 
which the lower nature is held by the higher, it is the at-one- 
ment, the reconciliation, the harmonization of all the elements 
in human nature, for it is not a belief in immortality, or in God, 
that saves any one, a mere intellectual assent given to a certain 
dogma. One can believe in religion and be a devil. The devils 
also believe and tremble, We can be intellectually unfolded 
enough to believe in God, but what does the resurrection mean 
to our individual lives ? It must result in the death of the 
lower nature that the higher may triumph. Nothing dies in 
reality, only in seeming. The seed is not quickened unless 
there is the appearance of death, and there is no quickening of 
the spirit unless there is the appearance of the death of the 
lower nature, until from the supulchre the rock is rolled away, 
in symbol of the birth of Truth. Theosophy is the science of 
right living rather than a sacerdotal system. A hidden wisdom 
is the world's religion. 

Ques. — What is the Theosophical idea of Deity? 

Ans. — The Divine Being is simply beyond the comprehen- 
sion of the soul in man. If I am not equal to God, or to an 
angel, there is a mystery about God or the angel as far as I am 
concerned. That which is on my level of belief I may explain, 
whatever is beyond that level remains an unsolved problem. It 
takes God to understand God, as well as a man to comprehend 
man, or a bird to understand the life of a bird. If Deity is 
above us, then Deity is beyond our definition. We find the 
soundest metaphysicians never undertake to limit Deity. Ag- 
nosticism is merely the confession of honest men that intellect 



SHORT LESSONS IN THEOSOPHY. 



5 



alone is unable to solve the problem of Deity. We have no con- 
flict with Huxley or Spencer. All divine things are unknowable 
by the senses, but there is a spiritual sense which we call intui- 
tion, by which we discover a knowledge of the Spirit, to whose 
researches there is no end. Intellectually we find, not God, but 
Energy, Power, Force. The word God means the All-Good, 
the Good One, nothing more, nothing less. Plato, in his im- 
mortal assertion, " God geometrizes," does not imply anything 
more than a mathematical Mind, not a kind, loving God. The 
infinite power might be a cruel, capricious one. It may seem a 
singular thing to say, and yet many people know nothing about 
God because they believe in God ; as soon as they give up believ- 
ing in Him, they find Him. Belief implies that some one is the 
custodian of direct intelligence regarding the Deity, whose tes- 
timony is accepted as final authority. A Testament is some- 
thing one leaves behind him when he is gone ; while the testa- 
tor liveth, the word is of no effect, therefore those people who 
know nothing about God save from the Bible (of which we 
would say nothing disrespectful, we speak only regarding its 
false rendering) believe in a dead God who has left His Testa- 
ment. Practically it is so. All Christians believe in a God 
who, as far as this world is concerned, is dead. There was a 
time when God spoke to the world, but he does so no longer. 
God on earth has finished His book. How utterly incongruous 
with the teachings of Jesus : " He has been with you and shall 
be in you. It is expedient that I go away, for then the Com- 
forter will come nearer than ever before, and lead you into all 
truth." They were not to receive it through revelation, but 
through the ever-living presence of the Holy Spirit within them- 
selves, which places every individual on the great rock on which 



6 



SHORT LESSONS IN THEOSOPHY. 



pure Theosophy is built. We must build our Theosophical tem- 
ple on divine justice, and we can never find it until we discover 
it in ourselves; it is a matter of spiritual uiifoldment. God is 
Love and Wisdom, as well as Justice. If we act divinely we 
shall have a revelation of divine wisdom in our own lives as our 
wisdom proceeds from divine love, for only when we act from a 
divinely human love can our acts be those of wisdom. If love 
does not direct the impulse, it cannot be wise. How many of 
us act from the pure love of humanity, and for the welfare of 
the human race ? The supremest conception of Deity is Love. 
Love is the highest goal and is inseparable from charity, for 
charity is love in motion. Love is the principle, charity the 
expression. Henry James declared that in studying the prob- 
lem of Life, he came to see more and more distinctly the only 
possible cause of creation. God being Love could not love Him- 
self, He must have an object to love, and we see in humanity 
the result of the Divine Love seeking object and expression. 
Remember by humanity we do not mean the inhabitants of this 
little planet, earth ; the earth is not the universe, it is not even 
the solar system, we mean all the intelligent inhabitants of 
all worlds which constitute the form of the Divine Man, that 
constitute the children of God, without beginning and without 
end. 

Ques. — What text-books are the repositories of this hidden 
wisdom ? 

Ans. — The hidden wisdom is wrapped up in our inner selves, 
not in books, or scrolls, but in God's living Word. Man is the 
highest expression of nature ; God's divine Word is in its high- 
est and noblest expression in human nature. The hidden wis- 
dom which will well up from our own souls must come through 



SHORT LESSONS IN THEOSOPHY. 



7 



development of our inner nature, and in no other way. Theo- 
sophical truth does not depend on legend, or historic person- 
ality, or the truth contained in sacred books, but on its intrinsic 
value and appeal to our moral nature. If Buddha and Jesus 
had never lived, Theosophical teaching would be none the less 
valuable to man. The precious stone has a value, here and 
now. All teachings are demonstrated in the holy influence 
they exert on human life. Judge the tree by its fruits. Bring 
it to the touch-stone of expediency. If we find the teachings 
of the Vedas, when lived out, cause war and hatred to be swept 
from the earth, we know the source from whence this stream 
sprang is the water of life that slakest the thirst of mankind ; 
and there is nothing in the Vedas that is not found in the New 
Testament. The teachings are identical, some of the precepts 
of the Vedas are as good, many more deeply veiled. In Theos- 
ophy we can well dispense with controversy if we drink from 
inspiration. Whether it were Buddha, the historic avatar of 
India, or Jesus, the historic light of Palestine, or Osiris of 
Egypt, remember that neither Osiris, Christ, nor Buddha are 
dead and buried. In spirit Jesus worketh now, the truth Bud- 
dha and Osiris brought is now working in the world. Why 
seek ye the living among the dead ? Why go to the sepulchre 
when you can meet the living spirit on the highways of life ? 
When opened in our spiritual intuition the sun within sheds its 
bright beams, and appreciable light, heat, and electricity stream 
from it. Those who bathe in the sunlight appropriate to-day 
its rays. It is not those who have analyzed the water, or 
tested the depth of the well, but those who drink the water 
that receive its benefits ; it is not our historic knowledge of the 
Truth, but our assimilation of the same which profits us much. 



8 



SHORT LESSONS IN THEOSOPHY. 



Ye must eat and drink and appropriate the sweet spirit of 
Truth now in the universe. The past is translated into the 
future. We live to-day, not in the days of Palestine. It is 
our present at-one-ment with the living Christ of the Spirit that 
necessarily brings us into the knowledge of the Truth. The 
truths of the soul are not apprehended by the intellect. Be 
guided entirely by your own intuition ; be honest and earnest 
in your search after Truth. 

Ques. — Is there not a brother-hood who sacredly guard these 
occult truths ? 

Ans. — The race of Mahatmas have spent ages in ferreting 
out the truths of the universe. Their existence is not widely 
known even by Buddhists themselves, only by those who are in 
a condition to know them. There is no reluctance on the part 
of the Mahatmas to reveal themselves, but they cannot create 
eyes in our heads to see them when they visit us. When Edwin 
Arnold re-visited India, he went to see the Buddhists of the Isle 
of Ceylon, receiving from them a complimentary address repre- 
senting him as a great interpreter of their Sanscrit philosophy, 
a work they remembered with affection. Conversing with them 
of the Mahatmas he was told that they knew nothing of the 
existence of such people, who could not be found, while they 
were so famous. At the same time they affirmed that there 
were teachings in the Sanscrit which, if followed out, would 
develop the chela into the state of Mahatma. They think 
Arnold's faithful and magnificent portrayal of Buddha did more 
than anything else could to call the attention of the Indian 
Empire to a knowledge of the beauties that lay enshrined in 
their religion, and made a powerful incentive to live up to 
them. We hear a great deal of Indian thralldom, and of worn- 



SHORT LESSONS IN THEOSOPHY. 



9 



an's degraded condition. It cannot be doubted that there are 
women in India in gross degradation, but this state exists in 
spite of the teachings of their philosophy (which should lead to 
the purest elevation of mankind), not in consequence of their 
religion. All the vices of Christendom are rebuked in Scrip- 
ture, and yet tolerated in a Christian community. There is no 
charge that can be brought against the Buddhist religion for 
the vices of Asia that cannot be brought against any other on 
earth, but the religion of India as interpreted in its sacred 
books is a religion of greatest purity and noble intelligence. 
No one who compares the religions of the world can fail to find 
in Buddhism the most humanitarian system, in Brahmanism 
the most metaphysical. Buddha taught that nothing and no 
one can come between us and God. We are our own high 
priests, mediators, and intercessors, free to discover truth for 
ourselves, following the path marked out by our own intuition 
which gives, "Thus saith the Spirit," as final authority. Many 
people are not content without some lord or master to obey, 
they want some one else to do their thinking for them instead 
of going directly to the God within their own hearts, receiv- 
ing Truth from the source of all Truth. It is only to awaken 
thought that we study Theosophy, not to render allegiance to 
some hierarchy of India. 

Ques. — Will you kindly explain the difference between 
Buddhism and Brahmanism ? 

Ans. — The great difference between them is this, that 
Brahmanism deals with abstract metaphysics, Buddhism with 
practical philanthropy. The Brahminical system as taught is 
the oldest in the East, and profoundly metaphysical. When 
Mrs. Eddy makes her statement, "All is mind, there is no mat- 



10 



SHORT LESSONS IN THEOSOPHY. 



ter," she uses a trite phrase in harmony with a spiritual under- 
standing of the universe, but it did not originate with her, nor 
with the Greek philosophers of two thousand years ago, but 
sprang from the oldest system on earth — ancient Brahmanism, 
which recognized spirit as the incorporeal Brahm, the only 
Real, the all-in-all of Being ; matter, Maya, as nothing, an 
illusion, a reflection of the All. The material world had no 
existence but as a reflection of the spiritual world which is the 
only real world, as spirit is the only reality. This doctrine of 
the realhVy of spirit and the illusive character of matter can be 
traced back thousands of years to the Yedas, the profoundest 
system of thought in the East. But this system of abstract and 
unapplied metaphysics addresses itself to the intellect alone, 
not to the affections, and frequently develops personal spiritual 
pride and self-righteousness, a system of caste, of ceremonial 
and priesthood. Any attempt to convert the world to absolute 
Brahmanism to-day would be futile. Those people who love 
to revel in abstract ideas are not as a rule benevolent. Bud- 
dhism is an entirely different kind of religion, is ethical more 
than creedal, and delights in benevolence. While Brahmanism 
looks to the salvation of one's own soul, Buddhism holds the 
higher thought, "What can I do to save others?" The usual 
question of the individual in the world, to-day, is, " What can 
I do to advance my own prospects, how rise to some higher 
condition in this world, or another?" This selfish considera- 
tion destroys all that is noblest and best in human nature. 
Buddha renounced everything, became a mendicant friar, and 
gave to the world a religion so near like Christ's that you can- 
not contrast them, for there is no contrast between them ; you 
can only compare and harmonize them. Buddha did not invent 



SHORT LESSONS IN THEOSOPHY. 



11 



his teachings, he found them in the sacred Vedas and Puranas. 
Buddha was simply a Brahminical reformer as Jesus was a 
reformer of the Jews. Jesus never protested against the law 
or the prophets, but against the aristocratic element that had 
crept into Judaism and destroyed the teachings of the Talmud. 
One taught, five and a half centuries after the other, the same 
truth, that all religion must be made practical. Buddha dis- 
puted some articles of the Brahman creed, and devoted himself 
so entirely to a life of loving kindness, that he exalted moral 
perfection above intellectual accuracy, reduced the purely meta- 
physical to practice, and founded a theory of pure ethics, of 
pure religion, carrying into effect some of the grandest teach- 
ings in the world. Buddha had attained in his earliest youth, 
when eight years of age, to the understanding of all philosophy, 
and all through his life he understood in his heart the religion 
of the East, but not until he reduced it to daily, hourly prac- 
tice did he attain to the state of essential blessedness. Under 
the sacred tree he saw all his past embodiments, reviewed every 
link in the chain of existence as it had been forged, and found 
in this moment of divine revelation that everything which had 
prepared him for Nirvana was the good he had done, not the 
intellectual position he had attained. An intellectual compre- 
hension of Theosophy is not a road to salvation, but it is the 
practical exemplification of our idea of it in our own existence. 
Our progress along the road is not to be judged by intellectual 
accomplishment, but by our spiritual growth. We cannot esti- 
mate real progress by the mere amount of knowledge stored up 
in the mind. We do not always find saints in professors' chairs, 
or sinners clothed in rags. Spiritual good is always our essen- 
tial good. 



12 



SHORT LESSONS IN THEOSOPHY. 



Ques, — Is the world ready to receive esoteric truths? 

Ans. — Every one is not prepared for the interior teaching 
in its most intricate form. Jesus condensed in his teachings 
the wisdom of the age : they were both sublime and simple. 
The veil is rent in ourselves that hitherto hid the inner meaning 
of truth from the world, the veil of mystery is torn to shreds, 
the spiritual mysteries of all religions revealed, although the 
materiality of the present day tends to dwarf the spirit of those 
who enter into the consciousness of Being. When man really 
knows himself he knows God. He who cannot find divinity in 
himself has only developed his fourth principle, life being to 
him a certain round of eating and drinking. We see many 
people who are animated shells and nothing more, they have 
their better moments, but their souls have not yet shone 
through to any great extent ; and there are those that have 
no consciousness of a spiritual existence, who are often actuated 
by a pure benevolence that puts to shame professed sanctity. 
They have a spirituality which they are as yet unable to 
express through their lower principle. Many people are not 
prepared for occult study, or theosophical investigation, which 
does really comprise religion, philosophy, and science. The- 
osophy is not intended for children but for men and women in 
understanding, the only people really qualified to deal with 
those great problems Theosophy presents to the world, which 
call for earnest and persistent study. We should not give that 
which is holy to dogs, and we ought not to enforce advanced 
ideas upon unprepared minds. Whatever we learn in a The- 
osophical school we never have to unlearn ; all true teaching 
is progress. You must impart these esoteric truths to the 
public by degrees, but teach in accordance with the foundation 



SHORT LESSONS IN THEOSOPHY. 



13 



principles. They must be pure in order to be good. Give 
milk and water if people are not ready for undiluted truth, but 
never prevaricate if you withhold, nor adulterate if you omit. 
The needs of human nature are so varied ; each mind requires 
that phase of truth adapted to its understanding. A The- 
osophist should be all things to all men to save all. Bring the 
student from scales and exercises to the works of the great 
masters. If we apply our divine wisdom as it was given on 
the day of Pentecost when all spoke in divers tongues, we 
should divide the Word to the comprehension and edification 
of all hearers. If we continue in this age the gift of tongues 
we will have one gospel as we have one arithmetic, or one 
chemistry, but provide different degrees of these sciences as 
pupils are prepared to receive them ; so this one law and one 
gospel can be adapted to all. Many speak of the unintelligi- 
bility of Theosophical literature, the language is so condensed, 
the thought so concrete, the ideas and forms of expression so 
unusual that the idle reader cannot understand it ; but, if 
everything difficult were laid aside, these timid pupils might 
never learn anything in their lives. The study of Theosophy 
is the study of a new science of which they know nothing, an 
art with which they are unfamiliar. We come to the expression 
of thought in a new language. The thoughts are exceedingly 
ancient yet new to the thought of to-day. The nomenclature 
may seem new and startling, but Kama loca is only purgatory, 
Devachan the spirit world or paradise, Nirvana, heaven ; 
Buddha is nothing more than Christ if so much, and there is 
nothing in Buddhism that there is not in Christianity. The 
value of Theosophy is that it shows the absolute unity of all 
divine philosophy. The general tendency of modern thought 



14 



SHORT LESSONS IN THEOSOPHY. 



is toward the rise of the individual, that of Theosophy toward 
the rise of the race, in forgetfulness of self which kills out all 
signs of separateness. We must feel that we are living the one 
true life, and that is the life of the race, the only life with 
which we should concern ourselves. Self-forgetfulness is not 
antithetical to self-preservation. There are laws and Law, 
there are no end of lower earthly laws included in the one 
universal Law of Spirit. 

Ques. — Is there not a rapidly growing desire on the part of 
humanity for higher spiritual revelation ? 

Ans. — Everywhere to-day there is a great and increasing 
interest in all that savors of occultism, which only means a 
secret science. Theosophy means divine wisdom, and do we 
not have to look or search for divine wisdom as for a secret 
or hidden treasure ? Without wisdom we cannot understand 
life in the past or the future. Theosophy unlocks the mysteries 
of Being. It does not deal with the individual as separate from 
mankind, but with all mankind everywhere, since the Eternal 
Being is Father and Mother of us all. The demonstration of 
Theosophical truth to the individual depends on the mental 
calibre of the individual and the effort made to solve the 
problem. All sciences are the various manifestations of this 
one true science ; there are various departments of knowledge 
but knowledge itself is One. All religious systems are the 
endeavor on the part of humanity to express its highest idea in 
sign and symbol. Theosophy has a unitizing and not a sepa- 
rative influence on those who study it, its adherents becoming 
friends who were hitherto strangers. Theosophy does not 
endeavor to overturn all creeds, but on the contrary, without 
taking any form of religion, symbol, or book, it interprets all 



SHORT LESSONS IN THEOSOPHY. 



15 



symbols, creeds, and books esoterically, not exoterically, recog- 
nizing that the letter killeth but the spirit giveth life ; therefore 
the true Theosophist is the universal religionist. 

Ques. — What is the Theosophical idea of death? 

Ans. — Death in Theosophy means death to old conditions, 
death to the animal nature, a resurrection for the spiritual, 
which like a glorious Phoenix bursts its bonds, therefore this 
death is always personified by the butterfly emerging from the 
chrysalis, or by the emblem of the Easter egg, the casting off 
of the shell, the deliverance from all the trammels of the cage, 
through the dominant life-principle working its way upward, 
the triumph of spirit over the thraldom of sense. There is 
a great deal of us that has to die. On the human plane of 
existence we die and never rise again ; our lower clothing 
is cast aside, we, the real selves, go higher. Death when 
understood, in all allegories, means- spiritual elevation, not 
physical dissolution. The Apostle rightly exclaims, " O death, 
where is thy sting ? O grave, where is thy victory? " meaning 
that death is only the casting aside of the shell, as the impris- 
oned bird breaks from its environment and rejoices in deliver- 
ance from it. There would be no fear of death if a person did 
not depend on the body for love and happiness. We should be 
willing to wear it and use it, but read}^ to lose it, with no doubt 
that the spirit world is a better state than this. Make it a 
matter of perfect indifference whether you remain here, or go 
hence. You are always at work in the spiritual universe. 
There is no difference in birth or death, we deny that you ever 
were born or ever can die ; simply realize that you always 
forever were. Feel that you have nothing to do with death 
and you will overcome it in all belief. Those who live in 



16 



SHORT LESSONS IN THEOSOPHY. 



Truth will pass into the spiritual state without any preparation, 
gradually dismissing physical environment, until the ultimate 
condition will be a passing through the beautiful gateway of 
transition as did those great adepts, Enoch and Elijah. Is it 
necessary that the house should tumble down because we are 
going to move out of it, or should the body we are to vacate 
first become foul and loathsome ? The entire philosophy of 
Being is expressed in Longfellow's " Dust thou art to dust 
returneth was not spoken of the sow?." It had a prior exist- 
ence and returns to God who gave it. The experience of a 
spirit on this earth is like that of a child who goes out to 
boarding school, or a youth put out as an apprentice. He 
remembers his home with love and enjoys it on his return, as 
he never would have done if he had not left it. The brother 
of the Prodigal Son, though unf alien was not superior, he had 
not the true lowly spirit of him who had fallen and risen, who 
had fought the battle and won the prize. ( Man can develop 
from manhoc d into angelhood as a child develops into maturity^ 
The freedom of the angel is nothing to that of the archangel, 
and yet the archangel was once a man, the man was once an 
infant. All spiritual studies that will lead us into intelligent 
recognition of pure Theosophy will bring us to a point of larger 
knowledge and teach us the relation of spirit to body. 

Ques. — You regard the body as the necessary tool of the 
spiritual workman ? 

Ans. — Our bodies are created or evolved for a definite 
purpose, they are our tools to work with, our dress to wear, 
our primer to learn our lessons from. They are brought into 
existence for a necessity. The spirit makes its body as the 
workman his tool. If the question arises : " Why do we not 



V 



SHORT LESSONS IN THEOSOPHY. 



IT 



then all have the bodies we would like," remember we cannot 
always externalize our thought to suit us in making a dress, 
bonnet, or coat. You have not the perfect power over the 
material with the pattern before you. People are often dissat- 
isfied with their own efforts and prefer the workmanship of 
others. The ideal always comes before the actual, the per- 
fection of the ideal is reserved for that condition in this world, 
or some other, when we have gained the ascendency over the 
material, when we shall be clothed upon with other bodies, — 
a glorious spiritual form. There is no such thing as creation 
of substance, only creation of form. Forms come and go, 
substance does not. When we are formed, nothing comes into 
being, and when we die nothing goes out of being : there is only 
a change in the appearance. Therefore creation is only organi- 
zation, expression ; seeming death is simply dematerialization, 
a disappearance from the realm of moral perception. From the 
standpoint of the Eternal there can be no change. There is 
no change of divine law but change in our conception of it ; 
there is no change in truth, but in our ideas of truth. So all 
outward things change, as outward things are the manifestation 
of our idea ; all intelligence is incessant and ever-varying 
activity. How is it the worlds differ, advancing from infancy 
to old age, and passing to their decay ? The change from first 
to last is in the condition of the mind working upon them. 
An organ is in the same condition during all the year you 
study music, but you are capable of playing at the end more 
intricate harmonies upon it than you could at the beginning, 
yet the capacity of the organ has not changed ; the musician 
changes, the organ does not, it has never been educated. The 
world and our bodies, as we behold them outwardly, are being 



18 



SHORT LESSONS IN THEOSOPHY. 



acted upon by intellectual elements that are always advancing. 
The legend of Pygmalion and Galatea, where the statue comes 
to life and is made to speak, is illustrative of the truth con- 
cerning spiritual evolution. Man produces a marble form 
through his mind and affections, he breathes his life into the 
work of his own hands. It never was himself, still the statue 
breathed, so our outward form can have no life in itself but it 
is the animated statue of the soul, the will and the affections 
manifested in the form. We might even fancy ■ this soul's 
statue to have a wavering, wandering will of its own which 
kneiv better than it did. Everything you call objective form in 
mineral or vegetable organism is nothing more than the expres- 
sion of an eternal impress, the embodiment of your breath but 
not of you who breathe. The human life, doubtless, lived for 
ages before expressing itself in human forms, it has been the 
creator of everything below it. It is more possible that the 
action of your mind made a monkey than that you ever were 
a monkey. Man as a spiritual entity was always in the spirit 
world. If we have passed through the animal and vegetable 
kingdoms it is because they have proceeded from the mind of 
man as the act of his thought previous to his building a form, 
in which his own conscious thought could express itself. We 
can understand involution in the light of evolution. We never 
are embodied ; we ourselves live now and ever in the spirit 
world, but the soul gives forth an impulse, produces a form, 
and endows it with more or less perfection. If we can con- 
ceive of ourselves as we really are, we have never been on 
earth at all, our real selves have created human, forms and 
endowed those human forms with life as the sculptor created 
the statue. Then the question arises, " do we really know 



SHORT LESSONS IN THEOSOPHY. 



19 



each other in spirit ? Have we admired the outward form and 
that only, or do we judge man by his soul-life, and not by that 
manifest to sense ? " Do we really know ourselves, does the 
lower know the higher nature ? The majority live in the lower 
nature and do not know themselves. The fall of man is the 
losing sight of our own spiritual nature in the busy scenes of 
external life. The lower-you has to find the higher-you. Con- 
sequently in the higher sense you never had a mother and 
never were born. Your spiritual being did not commence in 
mortal birth, your spirit entity was the cause of the conception, 
it made your mother a mother, without it she never could have 
given birth to a child. We believe in a super-personal Deity 
and a super-personal man. Man must come to understand 
himself and the principle of spiritual truth before finding his 
own soul, before he can walk in the light of the Spirit within 
him. 

Ques. — How can we unfold our spiritual powers ? 

Ans. — Our powers, whatever they may be, are capable of 
stimulation in every direction. To feel that we have a certain 
endowment to begin with, that we are born gifted, does not 
imply we should not set to work to diligently employ and 
cultivate the gift. Is it not possible to put these talents out 
at interest, to make the one talent two, the two increase to 
four, the ten become twenty as easily as the one become two ? 
Unto those who have shall more be given continually. Spir- 
itual growth has a value here and now, as well as in the life 
beyond the grave. It is not necessary, however, that we should 
isolate ourselves from mankind to develop our spiritual gifts, 
we should feel ourselves living now the spirit life in the spir- 
itual universe, we should speak and think now as we would in 



20 



SHORT LESSONS IN THEOSOPHY. 



a supernal state of existence. Theosophy claims that we can 
cultivate and exercise now all the powers of the spirit, they are 
Avithin the reach of us all, they are already in our possession. 
We can have spiritual illumination, vigor of intellect, insight, 
or clearness of perception. Practice makes perfect, we can 
develop spiritual muscle, can cultivate the latent spiritual 
powers within us, now lying dormant. Man can use his sixth 
sense, can accustom himself to employ it. We are not so 
diverse as we suppose ; we often think if we were constituted 
like other people we should shine more than they shine. 
Theosophy teaches us that genius is, after all, only applied 
energy, a capacity and determination to take possession of our 
own. We all possess powers within ourselves that characterize 
the most renowned people who ever stood on the platform of 
the globe. We need not ask 44 have I this or that gift," for 
when our gift is appealed to, it responds, and is used as a 
means of further development and higher culture. Every one 
really possesses the gift they wish for, if they did not possess it 
they would not care for it. The power within the breast 
struggles for expression, it says : " I have chosen you " (not 
"you have chosen me"), "I am in you already and want to be 
used." Our spiritual powers are continually asking to be 
exercised. This is the real, not fancied, condition of the spirit 
of man, as we unfold the law of Karma, or sequence. 

Ques. — Then you believe in the plurality of existences ? 

Ans. — Most certainly we do. What is re-embodiment but 
this — the higher principle having expressed itself imperfectly 
through the lower principle, allows that lower to fade away 
and develop, again and again, all forms of expression till at the 
last development, in the perfected form of expression, the soul 



SHORT LESSONS IN THEOSOPHY. 



21 



shines out in all its glory. The spirit is always in the spirit 
world, is never embodied into matter. The astral body is 
nothing more than an appearance, merely a shell or sack ; the 
spiritual body is as independent of the astral as the astral is of 
the physical. Our spirit in its essence is good, but needs 
experience to unfold it, even though born of the eternal soul. 
The expression of the soul before embodiment is like a seed 
unplanted. The physical form is its opportunity. Many think 
the spirit comes to earth merely for expression, but if, after 
the struggle of one or many existences, the soul was only to be 
converted into its first state, all the effort of human discipline 
would be of no avail whatever. Every soul may be as pure in 
a certain sense, but is not as powerful as God, has not knowl- 
edge as God. If our power is finite and His is infinite, and 
there is infinite difference between an infinite and finite power, 
then we can understand eternal progression, an unending 
advancement in power and knowledge, God is the only 
infinite, powerful Love and Wisdom. It is the eternal good 
will, the pure beneficence of the Infinite which brings all 
human beings into existence and endows them with the power 
and privilege of perpetually drawing nearer to Him, with 
eternity before them. We can constantly advance one step 
nearer to the Infinite knowledge and power which is always 
beyond us. The soul of man is as pure as the soul of God, but 
capable of infinite advancement in power and knowledge ; we 
are here on earth to acquire, to unfold, and express both. The 
effort of the soul thus to develop its power brings the world 
and the body into existence. When we have developed all 
that is possible in this present life, when there is no longer 
need of further embodiment, we advance to a higher plane, we 



22 



SHORT LESSONS IN THEOSOPHY. 



outgrow the love of earth and yearning for it, and we go to 
live in spirit, no longer to grovel in the dust. As long as we 
have earthly leanings and attractions they draw us into earthly 
experiences. The earth is a magnet until we have exhausted 
the sense drawing, have outgrown and put away all childish 
things with higher development of understanding. We are 
drawn here just as long as desire for embodiment lurks within 
us ; we are brought involuntarily into the state which corre- 
sponds to our mental condition. When we reach to the perfect 
state of being, of which eye and ear or heart cannot conceive, 
we reach the home of the soul, the eternal world, the kingdom 
of Heaven, the pure Nirvana of bliss. So far as we can travel 
in our finite thought we have then reached the end of our 
journey. What further hills there may be to climb, in condi- 
tions beyond our present conception, beyond time and sense, 
we cannot dogmatically declare. 

Ques. — Does the soul create its theatre of action ? 

Ans. — In the Kabala the statement is made that all worlds 
and forms are brought into existence, not by Ensoph, the 
sivpreme principle, but through subordinate deities, the Eloihim. 
There is only one supreme life, one infinite good. In the one 
there is the multitude. We have always existed and always 
shall exist. In the eternal world it is always NOW. Of our 
individual soul we can say, " I am what I am in being, not 
existence." Existence is only an external manifestation of 
Being. The soul is perfectly pure and divine as a direct 
offshoot from the Eternal Soul. In our highest conception of 
ourselves we are perfectly pure, but must distinguish between 
this divine soul and the human spirit. Our idea of the universe 
is that the soul creates the individual human spirit, the soul is 



SHORT LESSONS IN THEOSOPHY. 



23 



the atom which the physical scientist has never discovered. 
He discovers the molecule, the monad, which is an aggregation 
of atoms, but he does not find the atom. The absolute atom 
itself is entirely beyond the recognition of the bodily senses, 
can only be apprehended by spirit. This divine ultimate atom, 
in its endeavor to unfold power and knowledge, creates the 
spiritual monad (this is the second creation) ; the divine soul 
belongs to the Eloihim, being itself the work of God — Ensoph. 
The human spirit needs an earthly discipline and experience, 
we must begin at the top of the ladder. Everything begins in 
spirit, matter is the last outermost vibration of pure spirit. 
People see on earth as through a telescope whose lenses are 
inverted, they see where the effect ends instead of seeing the 
beginning. Jacob's ladder is the embodiment of all life and 
experience, representing the descent of spirit into matter and 
rising again to its source. There is no self-existent matter; 
there is only one atom, one primate, one homeogenous sub- 
stance, heterogenously expressed. Matter is the lowest expres- 
sion of this one substance, non-existent in the realm of cause, 
for in the realm of absolute reality all is spirit. The esoteric 
doctrine admits matter as an accident of time and sense : it 
comes between the spirit that is Alpha and the spirit that is 
Omega. The spiritual soul, the human soul, and the animal 
soul form a trinity of expression ; the Atma within is the origin 
of everything. The spiritual soul represents itself in intuition, 
the human soul in reason, the animal in instinct. We have 
found these three principles in us. Intuition is the moral 
sense ; reason, the intellectual sense ; the instinct, the animal 
perception. We lose the animal perception as we lose hope in 
certainty, faith in knowledge, the shell in the bird, as we lose 



/ 



24 



SHORT LESSONS IN THEOSOPHY. 



the bud when we get the flower, we lose our limitation. The- 
osophists have placed the human soul, the intellectual principle, 
between the animal soul which tends to earth and the spiritual 
soul which soars above ; the intellect may aspire to reach 
higher but is constantly vibrating, falters in its allegiance 
between the spirit and the animal. It is for the individual to 
decide whether he will voluntarily unite himself with the 
spiritual universe, or remain susceptible to lower conditions 
which must result in moral suicide and death. The true point 
of Christian living is to decide the question : " will we live in 
the flesh or in the spirit? " Here comes all the allegory of the 
temptation and fall of man. If we had not been in the lower 
state we could not reach the higher. Intellectual culture alone 
is not the best for mankind, for many intellectual people give 
themselves over to vices. The spiritual soul, the intuition, like 
a good genius, is ever urging us onward and upward, our evil 
genius is ever leading us downward toward the animal plane. 
The fourth principle must be the servant of the fifth and sixth, 
otherwise comes chaos and discord. This subordination of the 
higher to the lower is the old question of good and evil, the 
glory and the shadow, the foreground and background of exist- 
ence, but the light reigns forever, the shadow does its work 
and is then absorbed. In the truth of re-embodiment the 
punishment idea is both true and false. Expiation enters 
largely into Allan Kardec's theory ; we do not mean retaliation, 
but unfoldment, education, expansion. We must first under- 
stand what we are, before we can understand our mission, and 
why we are embodied at all, before we can understand our 
relation either to the eternity of the past, or to that of the 
future. Man is a perfect unit, but a trinity in unity, the outer 



\ 



SHORT LESSONS IN THEOSOPHY. 



25 



triangle representing the physical, the astral, and the spiritual, 
while within shines the central sun, the Atma, the Ego, one 
individual principle, forever and ever the child of God. 

Ques. — Do the varying degrees of unfoldment account for 
the differences in people ? 

Ans. — If the divine soul in man is the child of God, then 
it never varies in its goodness and holiness. The soul of man 
being infinite in purity, it is only while here on earth that we 
do not live in this divine principle. All that we recognize of 
ourselves ordiharily is very much less than ourselves, we have 
never made a full discovery of what we are, or of our own 
powers. Sons of men have to come to know that they are sons 
of God. Some have come to a better understanding of this 
divine truth than others. As we have been speaking on the 
previous embodiment of the spirit, we endeavor to show that in 
harmony with God's perfect law of justice there can be no 
respecter of persons. The Buddhist doctrine of Karma is 
simply the Oriental mode of representing divine justice impar- 
tially, its entire philosophy being a vindication of divine justice 
and application of the law of spiritual involution, and physical 
evolution, in individual cases ; the doctrine of evolution must 
teach a false doctrine if not interpreted spiritually. How often 
we hear of a man's being superlatively gifted, when, in reality, 
his gifts are only those powers acquired in a previous expression 
of the soul, as others are now acquiring them. There is no 
other way of explaining the difference between people but by 
this law of Karma, or sequence. If we all had equal knowl- 
edge of the truth, all would be perfectly well ; if we knew the 
right and did the right, we should be entirely free from pain 
and anguish, but do we all have equal opportunities of knowing 



26 SHORT LESSONS IN THEOSOPHY. 

the truth ? Are there not multitudes of people on earth to-day, 
who have no opportunity of getting this knowledge ? The 
reason is found in this law of Karma, which the Theosophical 
doctrine explains. It is our Karma that makes our opportu- 
nities. In the use we make of them we utilize, or in the non- 
use we fail to utilize our Karma. I may have the opportunity 
to learn certain things ; I have a friend so situated that they 
are never put within his reach, because his Karma did not give 
him this opportunity. Two persons may advertise for a posi- 
tion, one obtains it, another does not. Thus does our Karma 
operate in daily life. Some persons have power, others have 
not, but remember we are not stagnant, we are making Karma 
all along. Our past has made our present, and our present 
makes our future — a succession of heritages. It is only one 
life after all, divided into many sub-divisions, and although our 
present is the result of our past, still our next minute is the 
result of this minute, in which we are manufacturing Karma. 
We are creatures of past Karma, so far as opportunity goes, up 
to this moment, then creatures of the Karma we are making 
now ; so our present endeavor is by no means valueless. What- 
ever gifts we possess, whatever favorable advancement is now 
ours, it is something we have learned in the past, we have laid 
up treasure which is now ours. Everything rests with the 
individual. The doctrine of Karma is most encouraging, 
hopeful, inspiring, and not the most fatalistic, as so many people 
have understood it to be. What is our fate ? Not something 
which is arbitrarily imposed upon us, for our fate up to this 
time is the result of everything gone before up to this minute ; 
whether we remember making it or not, it is our own manu- 
facture. Our fate is our limitation. We rise beyond this fate 



SHORT LESSONS IN" THEOSOPHY. 



27 



when we begin to work. The spirit in its first embodiment 
has no fate, in completing all expressions ends without fate. 
When we have conquered fate we are the controllers, not the 
creatures, of circumstances. 

Ques. — Is it our Karma that brings us good luck ? 

Ans. — Some people are called lucky — the darlings of 
fortune — while others are unlucky, but the theory that it is 
God's will that some should have all the blessings and others 
only hardships is altogether erroneous. In regard to our 
failures where we desire to win, or of events occurring which 
we do not like, we must feel we are not yet grown to the 
condition where we can attract, or be benefited by what we 
desire, but the very fact of our undergoing this trial is a 
preparation to the state where we shall receive what we crave. 
There is some good and adequate reason why we have not 
succeeded hitherto, but past failure is no evidence of future 
misfortune. That failure has done something for us, it has 
been a development, we are not the same person who failed, 
and there is no reason why we should not succeed in the 
future. It is necessary we should have had this experience as 
part of our birth. Bun} r an, in prison, watched a spider fail in 
spinning his web six times, and succeed on the seventh ; the 
six failures made the success possible. The spider was the 
embodied illustration of the principle of our growth ; it had not 
gained the experience and strength after the fifth attempt that 
it acquired after the sixth ; the spider had then developed the 
condition that brought about the success. Thus in all our 
lives and endeavors we win the golden medal after humiliation 
and defeat. The doctrine of success embodies the supposition 
that some people have grown beyond the state of others ; all 



28 



SHORT LESSONS IN THEOSOPHY. 



will have the same to conquer, but at the present moment all 
are not equally far advanced. We should take all humiliations 
of our experience as part of our education. There is no luck, 
or fortune, merely one path for all — the path of growth. 
Through the line of growth runs the ladder of effect. What- 
ever comes is the result of our position on the ladder, and our 
position on the ladder is the result of all steps taken hitherto. 
The law of Karma urges us never to suppose we shall not 
succeed, never look forward with forebodings as if doomed to 
failure. Go hopefully onward to such opportunities as are 
born of past accomplishment. Without prophetic power we 
can see the growth of the previous state in the condition of the 
present. If we can bear fame and riches without haughtiness, 
or use a high position well, we will not need to sweep crossings 
in a future embodiment. The good ruler does not return as 
a slave ; despots must necessarily acquire the knowledge of 
service, learn the blessedness of ministration in the lowest 
position. Whatever good one has earned one holds forever 
and goes on to higher states. As everything is the direct 
effect of some past cause, every one can feel, " I have only to 
make the effort to succeed, I have all assurance of ultimate 
success, I have been through expressions others may not have 
experienced." It is so with the globe and the race, for the 
globe is man on a large scale. The globe undergoes what man 
undergoes in his final conflict over all material things, the 
growing out of a previous imperfect existence and preparing 
for a higher one. We do not look reprovingly on the past, but 
acknowledge the great apparent fulness of design and great 
unity of purpose. Instead of the world's being destroyed, the 
world will become advanced. The spirit that has operated 



SHORT LESSONS IN THEOSOPHY. 



29 



upon it withdraws from it, then it is again brought forward by 
other minds until they also recede from it. These are the days 
and nights of Brahm which will succeed each other, not for the 
same individuals, but for those who came before you and for 
the countless hosts who will come after you. Not for the indi- 
vidval is there ever a going back. The world is always a 
school, with days of action and nights of sleep, but the nature 
that once graduates never goes back again into the infant 
school as a learner, it steadily progresses until it reaches 
Nirvana, the highest state conceivable. We shall have to 
become Karma-less, outgrow our destiny, or fate, and rise 
above everything we call accident. Our life here is a qualifi- 
cation for a higher life, this life is the chrysalis, the next state 
that of the butterfly. The poet says : " here in the body pent." 
This is our limitation, but the butterfly dies as well as the 
chrysalis ; all resurrections die again, naturally speaking. The 
soul however belongs to eternity ; divine love is forever and 
forever the same. 

Qtjes. — Does the law of Karma make no provision for the 
forgiveness of sin ? 

Ans. — The doctrine of Karma is founded on the eternal 
principle of justice, beneath which there can only be abiding- 
rock. The essential proof of the value of any theoiy is that it 
harmonizes with divine justice. Having a sense of justice in 
ourselves, we know that whatever is just must be true, and 
whatever is unjust cannot be true. Justice is the universal 
solvent, the interpretation of all the parables of existence. Is 
Karma just, or not? It is said: "to err is human, to forgive 
divine." 'We are told that Karma makes no place for forgive- 
ness. Now why is it not divine to forgive ? Can your highest 



30 



SHORT LESSONS IN THEOSOPHY. 



idea of God be of one who forgets and forgives ? Can we 
believe him capable of anger, wrath, or resentment ? So long 
as the idea of God was semi-barbaric, just so long was the 
Divine Being endowed with human limitations. God is, after 
all, only human if He forgives and not human in the highest 
sense. Forgiveness implies an alteration in the mind of the 
one who forgives. God can never change His state, for He is 
never less than perfect ; He never changes His attitude toward 
His children, though they may change their attitude toward 
Him. God is never angry though He may look so to us when 
we have anger in our hearts. What a lesson for humanity i& 
the " neither do I condemn thee, go and sin no more." It is 
true that Jesus, when on the cross, said: ''Father, forgive 
them," not as an example, or to tell God what to do, but in 
tender pity for man's imperfect needs, to teach him forgiveness. 
It is our duty to forgive because we are imperfect. God is 
perfect, never gets angry with any one, and therefore has 
nothing to forgive, He is never anything but Infinite Love. It 
is carnally human to err, it is humanly divine to forgive. It 
was once thought that in the thunderclap God revealed His 
anger, the lightning flash was interpreted as the fury of 
imperial Jove, when storms are only the footprints of Divine- 
Love. We see only infinite love and wisdom in everything ; 
all is good even if incomprehensible. All of God's acts are 
based on infinite goodness, and ours are not. Theosophy gives 
us the idea of God in its highest conception, which is not that 
of a changeable Deity. Now if God and Law and Nature are 
one, and Law is the law of the Divine Mind, the law is the 
expression of God and we thus get rid of God's rival, or adver- 
sarjr, get rid of everything but God, we reach a pure theism. 



SHORT LESSONS IN THEOSOPHY. 



81 



God is the Eternal Cause, present in the effect ; the effect par- 
takes of the nature of the cause. What then is this inexorable, 
immutable law, but the unvarying manifestation of Divine 
Benevolence ? 

Qtjes. — Does the operation of Karma bring us our bereave- 
ments ? 

Ans. — There is no bereavement except to sense. So long 
as we place our affections on the plane of sense, we need the 
discipline of losing their object. Every experience is a stepping- 
stone to a higher condition. Our happiness does not consist in 
external things, but in peace of mind. A bereaved mother 
might have a love so pure and unselfish for the child that was 
taken from her, a love so full of comprehension of God's will, 
and what was really best for her child, knowing that she was 
forever ensphered in the real child presence, that there would 
be no loss or bereavement. She would be just as conscious of 
the spirit world as of this, and more absolutely certain the 
child was with her and loving her. The animal soul in us 
continually wars against the spirit ; the lower elements, which 
occasion all our personal grief, have to be overcome. Christian 
Science tells us death is a belief, but who has the belief ? Not 
the one who dies, but you who pass through the belief of death. 
Your child, who is supposed to have died, has not passed 
through the belief of death at all. If he could speak to you he 
would say, " I am alive, I am conscious, and with you just the 
same ; " he would persist in being alive, the belief in death is 
on your side, he knoivs he has not died. How can he believe 
in death, how can God know anything of death when all live 
unto Him, how can He sympathize with your loss when there 
is no loss ? God sees everything in its true light, how can He 



32 



SHORT LESSONS IN THEOSOPHY. 



sympathize with that which has never occurred ? We fancy it, 
but that is our error, our limitation, and we continually ask 
God to recognize it. If God is infinitely true, how can He 
recognize what has no reality, what never took place and never 
can take place ? If we knew the why and wherefore of all our 
experience, if we could take the point of view in all its broad 
sweep that a celestial visitant would take, we should see that 
all is good, we should know that evil is good in disguise, and 
would say with Job : " shall we not receive from the hand of 
God what seemeth evil?" We only give two names to the 
dispensation of divine purpose. That which we call good at 
one time might be evil at another. At the highest point of our 
development all is good, there is no evil. There is nothing 
more to grumble about, all things are for the best. When we 
arrive at this point, it will blot out from our vision the idea 
that there is any need of tears, or pangs, in our development. 
The eternal purpose is fulfilled in everything from the greatest 
to the least. There must come this period in our development 
when we shall know that whatever we have undergone is the 
plan of divine unfoldment, as the flower is the outgrowth of 
the perfect plant, foreseen when the seed is planted. The 
flower is there in the seed. Externally speaking, the seed 
comes before the flower and slowly develops into the flower ; 
in the spiritual idea the flower is there in perfection already. 
The external world is to be the portrait of the thought of the 
Divine Artist — the photograph of the spiritual idea. In the 
present condition of the world, the photograph is not finished. 
Ideas are sitting for their portrait ; when all these ideas are 
perfected the millennium will have come, the period of the 
finishing of the picture, when ideas that have existed in the 



SHORT LESSONS IN THEOSOPHY. 



33 



mind of God shall be reflected in the mind of man and his sur- 
roundings. When we have God's idea perfectly reflected in us 
we shall know what it really is to be perfectly contented and 
happy, to know no care or annoyance. We hear geologists say 
that the earth struggles by its convulsions to settle itself. The 
earth is still young, these are the signs of its imperfections, by 
which it is paving the way for a more perfect condition ; by 
means of cyclone and earthquake, all which is best fitted to. 
survive passes from juvenility to a higher state. While the 
world refines about us, there is a correspondence found in the 
refinement of man, there is a reciprocal action between earth 
and man, so may we not say that physical and spiritual science 
teach us the same thing ? When all mysterious prophecies are 
interpreted in the light of science and experience, when spir- 
itual illumination gilds the page, we find that not only every- 
thing will turn out right, but everything is right now, we feel 
that we have lost all evil, and everything that has occasioned 
our sorrow, humiliation, or pain. If we could only feel that 
any calamity was the best thing that could possibly occur, it 
would cease to be a calamity any longer. There is always an 
under-current of thought that submission is not noble, that the 
world would have been better without the storm, that if some- 
thing could have averted the earthquake what a blessing it 
would have been, when it was a necessity in the evolution of 
the earth, it was harmful only from a superficial point of view. 
If those who suffered from it could have understood this, they 
would have been sufferers no longer in mind, have felt no 
anguish in spirit, as if deserted by the divine power. The 
pessimist thinks all these things are occasioned through blind 
force, without intelligence or mercy. Does not this feeling 



34 



SHORT LESSONS IN THEOSOPHY. 



cause much of the misery there is in the world ? If our house 
is burnt down, should we not say, " well, this is one of the 
experiences that we must go through in our development, it 
must result in some good, there was a divine purpose in the 
fire." Even if it leave us paupers it was a necessity, without 
which we should have lost a part of our education, and thus we 
can maintain an active, cheerful spirit in our poverty. If we 
could realize that everything which occurs is really for the best, 
we should be able to meet all the difficulties in our way and 
not let them crush us to the earth ; we would not feel down- 
trodden and overwhelmed as the sport and plaything of some 
blind force. How could we henceforth suffer ? Humiliation 
for us is forever past. The point to be reached is to be unaf- 
fected by external things. Gaining this point, we have then 
completed our journey as far as this planet is concerned. 
However the result may be obtained, in this result we have the 
completion of this life's discipline. The question for each 
individual is, how much result have I, and that result is 
superiority to whatever is capable of making us unhappy, or 
ashamed. 

Qtjes. — Can we exhaust all past bad Karma in one life- 
time ? 

Ans. — Our Karma is that whereof our thoughts, words, or 
deeds are borne in effect. We have been making Karma 
through a life of thirty or forty years perhaps, and have in it 
the concentrated result of all the actions and thoughts of that 
life. Now the question arises, can we change all those condi- 
tions in the remaining years of our earthly life, can we see a 
light ahead strong enough to obliterate all past Karma ? Yes, 
if we make a very hard struggle indeed, we can, but, if we go 



SHORT LESSONS IN THEOSOPHY. 



35 



on in a dilettant fashion, we cannot enter the future world in 
a state of perfect happiness, Remember, however, that what 
is perfectly true of the future world is not true of the eternal 
world. They are not identical, the forever which you call 
forever is not eternity. In this law of Karma, the sequence of 
human involution, the steady and certain development of indi- 
vidual merit, we get rid of that infernal doctrine of everlasting 
punishment, founded on the Greek adjective which means long- 
enduring ; sulphur and brimstone being only symbols of purifi- 
cation. Karma makes of this life, a probation. Where 
churches have made a mistake is to limit probation to one 
life-time, to regard as eternity the period which follows one 
life, and antedates another. It is utterly impossible that a just 
God should make an eternity depend on our acts in this one 
life, but a temporary probation follows on a temporary life. 
With eternity we have nothing to do, but with the spirit life 
which immediately follows this life, which we must prepare 
for, here and now. Our whole future career depends on the 
use we make of this school, the duties that come to us in this 
world have to be done here or nowhere, a theory that endows 
this life with importance, makes this world an important world, 
gives us zest and energy to live well now, by which we shall 
gain temporal reward for temporal good, and temporal punish- 
ment for temporal error. Eternal reward for temporal good 
would be unjust. When a beautiful soul goes into the spiritual 
world bright, pure, and happy, it has nothing to outgrow, it 
goes on learning, if it has developed the power to learn spirit- 
ually in this world. If that particular talent has not been 
improved here it will be taken away ("even that which he 
hath "), not lost in the sense of annihilation, but held till the 



36 



SHORT LESSONS IN THEOSOPHY. 



next embodiment, when the spirit shall again have the talent 
to use. But we cannot be happy, here or there, until we have 
destroyed all evil Karma, that which brings us suffering and 
distress. The way of its destruction is to do the very good 
that counteracts the evil. All can judge of their progress by 
noting the development of perfect charity ; when we have 
conquered some particular vice there is proof of it when we 
ignore vice in others. All the good you think is so much 
material to build up the spirit ; all }^our bad thoughts, or deeds, 
have just the same kind of effect on your spirit that bad air, or 
tainted food, has on your body. The question is, have you 
eaten enough good food to more than counterbalance the bad, 
otherwise there is no advance, no progress ; you may build up 
with one hand but you pull down with the other, your whole 
life being an oscillation, or a see-sawing, you neither retrogade, 
nor advance ; if you speak kind words you step forward, when 
you are unkind, you go backward, although if in going back 
you have learned something, then there is progression through 
retrogression. Good Karma in its effect lives forever, bad 
Karma only for the single state, it relates only to time, it makes 
us suffer and we get our advance through ■ it. The law of 
Karma points as a discipline for our good, everything that 
comes, takes from us all repining over any grief, care, or misery 
* . which we know we have brought upon ourselves. We suffer 
only when we see no reason below it. The idea of Karma 
teaches that what befalls us now is the consequence of what 
we have done already, We reap our past and create our 
future ; whatever we do, say, or think makes Karma. The 
study of Karma is a most practical one, for, as we can destroy 
evil Karma by creating good, the creation of good Karma is the 



SHORT LESSONS IN THEOSOPHY. 



37 



work of to-day. Make the very best of past consequences, 
convert the failure and folly of the past into pure gold of 
higher thought for future days. There is no arbitrary allotted 
time through which we must look for such result. There is 
a work for us to do, when we have done it we receive the con- 
sequences of that work, independent of time. 

Ques. — Should we not eliminate from our effort all anxiety 
as to the result ? 

Ans. — The reward is always given to work and not to 
anxiety. If we worry we are almost certain to turn the scales 
against ourselves. Right must prevail because it is right ; 
truth conquers because it is truth. In a calm state of mind 
we have the ability to do what we could not otherwise do, or 
see how to do. All worry disqualifies us for work, disables us 
for individual, intelligent action. When we feel our success 
to be uncertain we fail, when we do not worry we have a light, 
the light of intuition for our guidance. We are too prone to 
pray the prayer of doubt and uncertainty. There is a higher 
principle in our nature. Intuition is an infallible judge, and 
we cannot know anything about intuition until the higher 
principle is developed. The highest degree of advancement 
is through self-forgetfulness. If we become indifferent con- 
cerning ourselves, we rise to consider the welfare of the race. 
When we are in our spiritual infancy we may be cold, haughty, 
imperious, proving we have never grown superior to the 
tempter ; when grown, self is superseded, Jesus, as the incar- 
nation of Truth, as the Light of the world, was perfectly in 
harmony with divine law. Both Jesus and Buddha were ripe 
fruits of the tree of life where others are simply green. If we 
are sour and acid now, remember Jesus and Buddha gathered 



38 



SHORT LESSONS IN THEOSOPHY. 



also from the tree of earthly discipline. We see in those 
matchless lives the perfection of the wearisome stages we are 
now passing through. Jesus, "perfected through suffering," 
ascended to his glory, but he first went through with these 
very experiences', the utility of which we are prone to discard, 
before he became identified with all perfection. The very 
sufferings we most object to, as hardest to bear, are part and 
parcel of that which works out the perfection. One of the 
most bitter of Jesus' experiences was the infidelity of his 
friends, the betrayal of Judas, which he did not deserve, but, 
through the alchemy of the universal plan, it proved the very 
means by which he was perfected. In being faithful under 
trial you are creating good Karma, without which you would 
not have had such opportunity. Every time you meet with 
trial or annoyance you have chance to make good Karma ; it 
will be a loss to you if you do not take advantage of it. In this 
sum of our existence, the many links of the one chain, we 
receive whatever that which we have done qualifies us for. 
There are scratches left on our spiritual nature by everything 
that we have said, or clone. The law of Karma is the law of 
consequence. 

Ques. — What do you understand by Devachan ? 

Ans. — Simply the night between two days, the Sabbath 
between two periods of activity. Devachan, the Buddhist 
paradise, solves one of the problems of the human mind. It is 
natural, perhaps, that many should look forward to a state of 
perfect happiness and rest, but the period is capable of an 
entirely better explanation. No one could greatly anticipate 
the enjoyment of going to bed and never getting out again to 
activity. The theory of sleeping in the grave is a corruption 



SHORT LESSONS IN THEOSOPHY. 



39 



of the ancient idea of Devachan, a state where work will be 
perfect rest, and perfect rest will be work. The spirit has its 
period of repose, of satisfaction, before waking up into more 
active consciousness in another state of being, but there is no 
state of idleness. Perpetual motion is the law of every created 
existence. Rest does not mean idleness, or stagnation, but a 
putting aside the mental energies for a vacation holiday. The 
spirit no longer has its occupation on earth, the material world, 
the outward activities of life are no longer necessary. In 
Devachan, or the spirit world, we shall remain until we have 
exhausted the Karma made during our earthly life, and we 
begin our next existence in the condition we are in through the 
exhaustion of that Karma. The spirit world is for us the 
fruitage of the life we are now living, we have just as much 
to reap there as we have sown here, then we begin afresh in a 
new embodiment, but we cannot therein be wise and noble, 
and of very great use and beneficence to the world, if we have 
hitherto sown evil seed. The consequence runs from one life 
to another and then works itself out. God cannot forgive 
because we outgrow past errors. When we have outgrown the 
evil, when we are all good, we become Karma-less. The tree 
of life is at last the tree of knowledge of good and evil, the 
tree of our discipline on which our Karma grows ; they grow 
together, the reward and the penalty. The simple fact that we 
can have our feelings hurt shows we are not perfect. Every- 
thing that comes to us must redound for our good, it cannot 
possibly do anything else. If some of us had fewer difficulties 
and trials, then we would have fewer opportunities for progress, 
and why should we not say : " does God give more opportu- 
nities for unfoldment to others than to me ? " Therefore count 



40 



SHORT LESSONS IN THEOSOPHY. 



it all joy when ye fall into temptation ; it is only some old 
principle in our nature not overcome. The animal soul is the 
tempter, the only devil there is ; something in us wants some- 
thing, which something else in us does not want. In resisting 
the tempter we develop our strength and character. No one 
is ever great who has not made the effort to become great, 
either in this or in some past embodiment. All past experience 
is locked up in the mind but we are not always aware of it, we 
have more accumulation of experience than we know anything 
about, we do not express on earth more than we now need. 
Wendell Phillips was, naturally, a man of great capacity, but 
he never would have so distinguished himself had not the great 
need of the age made such demand upon his oratory. He 
would always have been a graceful platform orator, but not the 
great and thrilling speaker he was in the days when the anti- 
slavery conflict was at its height. The great cause appealed 
to the latent greatness within him. We are not all equally 
imbued with power, because only a few, in past experience, 
have gone through such discipline as has stored within the 
latent capacity. In the next embodiment you do not begin 
where you left off in the last life but where you end in the 
spiritual world, higher in the scale of human development. If 
living impurely now it will leave you in a condition of exhaus- 
tion, you have a small chance to progress, but will have to 
work for it, you will struggle with tremendous odds but may 
win a great deal. No condition is hopeless, no child was ever 
born for punishment. This world is not a hell, it is simply a 
school where we have the opportunity to learn, and no fate 
hangs over any head that ordains a failure, though some have 
to struggle very hard to make it a success. The doctrine of 



SHORT LESSONS IN THEOSOPHY. 



41 



Karma teaches hope, it does not encourage reconciliation to the 
inevitable because nothing is inevitable, we all have opportu- 
nity to make good Karma and secure a happy life in the next 
embodiment. If you succeed in developing character here you 
send the spirit out into the spirit world, or Devachan, bright 
and beautiful to prepare for the next embodiment. A martyr's 
crown shines always brightest in the life beyond. For such 
lives there is compensation whose glory no words can portray. 

Ques. — Then our heaven is always what we make it ? 

Ans. — Whatever is your idea of heaven you will have. 
Leave everything to the working out of eternal purpose and 
natural law. Every one, according to his effort, deserves the 
very best. We have all conceived of perfect happiness, but 
some of us are capable of enjoying far more than others, it 
would take more to satisfy one than it would another, but if 
our life is faithful we shall reach all the happiness we can 
attain. Some can apprehend beauty in music and art that 
common people know nothing about, can drink more inspira- 
tion from a landscape than they can describe. This differ ence 
in people is so great, that, if you could measure the actual 
amount of their enjoyment, one person would be in capacity 
like a pipe-butt, the other a gallon vessel. The Indian of the 
North American prairies has no higher idea of the future state 
than of the happy hunting ground, his sole ambition to reach 
that desired goal, which might not, with your higher develop- 
ment, satisfy you, but the Indian would exclaim, " Great Spirit 
so good to give me all I want; " he could not enjoy anything 
more. If you have lived a higher life, you might imagine, or 
picture, a beautiful city, with scenery of gorgeous description, 
where treasures of intellect are outpoured. You can go and 



42 



SHORT LESSONS IN THEOSOPHY. 



receive your happiness in the ideal world which you have 
pictured. The man in his study is no happier with his books 
than the child in the nursery with his toys ; the child has to 
grow into the stature of the man before he can enjoy the books. 
We go on multiplying our opportunities and possibilities, we 
labor and strive for the highest growth, awaking from surrender 
at death to all the glories we can conceive. There is an abso- 
lutely perfect reward for an absolutely perfect, brave, indus- 
trious life. The more advanced the soul, the higher the possi- 
bilities for enjoyment. 

Ques. — How can we meet our friends in heaven if they 
have re-embodied? 

Ans. — There is a very, very long period of time between 
embodiments, these interregnums between embodiments being 
referred to in the New Testament as ages, as the world coming 
to an end, a new heaven and a new earth, and similar expres- 
sions, but do not fear that, if your friends are re-embodied, you 
will not meet them in spirit when you go to the spirit world. 
You do not realize the life you are now living. This is the 
reason you cannot get along without sleep. This world is not 
man's native element, we are at times obliged to retire from it ; 
this life is a workshop from which we need a temporary retreat, 
we have to go into our natural element to find our rest beyond 
the realm of dreams. From unbroken slumbers we awake 
built up afresh, strong, and full of peace. In the realm of 
spirit, our spirit has dwelt with a higher fellowship, we come 
back with happier aspirations, the results of renewal in spiritual 
states of life. We are like amphibious animals that live in two 
elements. We come up out of the material element of this life 
into the ocean of spirit. We could not be prepared for our 



SHORT LESSONS IN THEOSOPHY. 



43 



work on the dry land, if we did not occasionally slip off into 
the water. We must realize that we should know each other, 
not only after the flesh but after the spirit. When we go into 
a higher state of being we shall not know or care what external 
form our friends may wear, since the form does not contain the 
spirit. The earthly embodiment is the garment it wears now, 
the external projection of the spirit element, but the substance 
must not be confounded with the shadow it casts. We always 
were, we always are in the spirit realm, now and forever, we 
must know each other in spirit if we would know and under- 
stand what, in spirit, we really are. The soul lives its own 
life individually in the spirit world, independent of external 
expression. When people speak of their desire to meet their 
friends in the life beyond the grave they fail to realize in what 
spirit union really consists. We should very soon grow tired 
of the outer personalities. Nothing external could forever 
satisfy us. We live forever in the life immortal. 

Qtjes. — Do Theosophists admit communion with the spirit 
world ? 

Ans. — There is a decided misapprehension as to what The- 
osophists really teach on the point of spiritual communion. 
Theosophy abhors so-called business mediumship, in the ordi- 
nary sense, or communion with the spirit world for mundane 
advantage. It holds that mere passive mediumship ought to 
be superseded by individual spiritual illumination, which is 
very different from automatic mediumship. Mediumistic power 
is not necessarily associated with intellectual vigor or moral 
excellence, it is often nothing more than mesmeric sensitive- 
ness, the medium serving as a weather vane to register the 
condition of the passing hour, living in the animal soul with 



44 



SHORT LESSONS IN THEOSOPHY. 



no conception of God, or Spirit, at all. We have to advance 
a degree higher and cultivate the spiritual soul. If we culti- 
vate our spiritual nature we cannot help seeing the spirit world, 
cannot help getting spiritual revelation. When we try to drag 
a spirit down to a money-making business, or to gratify curi- 
osity, the knowledge of communion with the spirit world is 
detrimental to both sides of the house, for the spirit is hindered 
in its progression and is therefore deprived of the rights of a 
human being. Theosophy tells Spiritualists to go higher, and 
the best writers on Spiritualism teach the same thing. We 
must make an effort to cultivate and spiritualize ourselves, 
instead of bringing the spirit world down to this and material- 
izing it. While our own spiritual development remains on a 
sensuous, phenomenal plane we are subject to astrals of every 
description. We do not want to be materialists with another 
name. The more the spirit is delivered from earthly affections 
and interest in earthly affairs and dreams of sense, the more the 
spirit is satisfied with living in a spiritual state and holding 
communion, through affinity, with our higher spiritual principle 
rather than through expression in spirit phenomena. I know 
a widow who has no desire for material communication, for, 
she says, "whenever I enjoy an unbroken night's sleep I feel 
myself going out into the boundless realm of the spirit world, 
though I cannot remember that superior state in mortal con- 
sciousness, but I feel on waking that I have only just come 
from my husband and children, I often hear myself saying, 
4 good-by, I shall be back again very soon.'" This is true 
spirit communion which allows of no deception, no intermission, 
nothing to break the reunion with any number of embodi- 
ments. Theosophy is only a higher phase of Spiritualism, 



SHORT LESWOISS IN THEOSOPHY. 



45 



there is no contradiction, no discrepancy between them. 
When you see a little of Theosophy it looks hostile to Spirit- 
ualism, when you study it more thoroughly they both unite. 
Spiritualism should mean that we commune with the spirit 
world through the unfoldment of our spiritual nature. The 
ordinary idea of mediums is that for all information, for all they 
see, say, or do, they are dependent on other intelligences. 
Theosophy claims that we are to develop independent clair- 
voyance, and psychometric powers. We do not want another 
spirit to show us the spiritual world, we can use our astral eyes 
and see in the astral light if we develop our sixth principle. 
We endorse mediumistic power as supplementary, not as sub- 
stitutionary ; rightly understood, it means voluntary spiritual 
co-operation, not arbitrary coercive control. Mediums should 
live what they teach. True Theosophy acknowledges we can 
get from the spirit world what we can get in no other way. 
but we must depend on ourselves also. We are living to-day 
as astral beings in an astral world ; while with our physical 
eyes we behold nature, with our astral eyes we are able to look 
on the spiritual condition of the universe. The astral inter- 
penetrates the physical. If we see a dog's footprint on the 
floor, it would not be necessary to see a dog enter or leave the 
room to decide that a dog had been there ; by seeing a human 
footprint you could judge how large was the person who made 
it. So in the astral atmosphere every thought-condition makes 
an impression, our thoughts and desires all leave footprints on 
the astral sand. An astral seer can see these thoughts and 
impressions as you with physical eyes can see footprints across 
the snow. An individual who is clairvoyant is merely one who 
can look out on the astral atmosphere and see its conditions and 



46 SHORT LESSONS IN THEOSOPHY. 



reflections. All material things are due to astral vibrations^ 
these in turn are due to spiritual vibrations, and that is forco 
and life, per se. As in a descending chromatic scale, we can 
come down from soul itself to spirit, from spirit to astral, from 
astral to material, the astral being the intermediary between 
the spiritual and the physical. Both Spiritualists and The- 
osophists have grasped the fact that the disembodied can 
commune with man and produce all kinds of spiritual and 
psychic phenomena. The occultist can command a table to 
move and it will move by his will power. People often attrib- 
ute certain wonderful powers and wisdom to spirits, which they 
possess themselves. We want to know what psychical powers 
are embodied in us, we must not imagine that death is going to 
give them to us, neither will it deprive us of them. The odic 
force in the universe, which we must discover and understand, 
is not unknowable. People have not demonstrated all the 
powers which they themselves possess that can produce these 
phenomena. There is a great difference between the illumina- 
tion of the adept and the passivity of the medium ; the latter 
is the lower condition. If, through this passivity, we receive 
spiritual tidings, the message cannot be verified, we have to 
take another's word for it, the words may be beautiful and 
helpful, if not true they ought to be, but farther than this we 
cannot go. If we develop our own powers there can be no 
doubt, because, while still in the body, we look into and go 
into the spirit world. If we could only understand the excur- 
sions we make every night, and remember our nocturnal 
rambles, for every time we go sound asleep we go to our spirit 
home, we travel in our astral body, here and there, and one 
who has developed the higher principle can consciously pass 



SHORT LESSONS IN THEOSOPHY. 



47 



the natural barrier and go at will, into the spirit world. We 
must get into the position of spiritual receptivity, then we 
should hear from our spirit friends as we now do from one 
another, we should see them as plainly, the tidings no longer 
hypothetical, because we have taken a higher step, adding to 
our belief, faith, to our faith, spiritual knowledge. 

Ques. — What is your opinion of spiritualistic phenomena? 

Ans. — The phenomena, if genuine, are for the most part 
unsatisfactory and ambiguous. Human conditions are such 
that the astral light in which the clairvoyant sees is so tossed 
and perturbed that they cannot see things clearly, and get only 
a confused conglomeration of varied shapes. Societies for 
spiritual culture and unfoldment of psychic powers should be 
formed in private homes. A large percentage of the entire 
human family can develop such psychic power to a wonderful 
degree. Let every one allow their spiritual nature full scope, 
put away prejudice and misconception, and allow the soul to 
declare itself. We do not repudiate mediumistic phenomena, 
but would develop them to the plane of a higher class of intelli- 
gences. The astral world is full of cemeteries as this is, for in 
the astral world, as the spirit passes on into a higher life, the 
astral body is left behind in the astral atmosphere, as the 
physical body is left behind in this sphere, and the astral body 
gradually disintegrates, dying slowly as the higher principle 
advances from it. Our physical vital fluid emanates from the 
astral body ; it is the astral body that suffers in amputation, 
the spiritual body is intact. Our higher spiritual principle is 
in the spirit world to-day. Phenomena is only valuable as 
demonstrative of principle. Theosophical science is a method 
of bringing people into higher relation with the spiritual forces 



48 SHORT LESSONS IN THEOSOPHY. 

in the universe that exist within ourselves and all around us. 
The proper study of mankind is man. Theosophy really aims 
at the elevation of man to a spiritual plane. 
Ques. — What are elemental spirits ? 

Ans. — All elements are peopled with elemental spirits, 
there is nothing without its spirit. There is no fire without 
the presiding salimandi, no water without its undine, no earth 
without gnomes, or air without sylphs. Now man has these 
four orders of elemental spirits within himself. The salimandi 
correspond to his affections, the undines to his reason, the 
sylphs control his imagination, and the gnomes his animal pas- 
sions or material power. If men gratify their lower instincts 
they attract these lower powers, and here lies the philosophy 
of ghosts and material attractions. The miser has united him- 
self with the spirits of earth, for by the worship of gold in 
thought, or perpetual striving for wealth, we come under the 
dominion of those elements on the plane invoked. If we live 
on the ordinary animal plane, we cannot absorb or respond to 
spiritual truth. What do you know of life that keep the 
spiritual in the background, the physical in the ascendant ? 
When you pass out of the physical form you are entirely out 
of your sphere, and find yourself in one you are not prepared 
to enter. Theosophy points out two paths, as Jesus also taught 
the broad way and many entering upon it, the narrow way and 
few going in thereat. Jesus was, undoubtedly, a Theosophist. 
Between the ages of twelve and thirty, he travelled exten- 
sively, visiting in Egypt, Persia, and India, the most powerful 
lodges on earth, becoming one of the greatest and most glorious 
teachers. Christians accept Jesus and reject Buddha, when no 
comparison can be attempted between the two religions, 



SHOUT LESSONS IN THEOSOPHY. 



49 



because they teach exactly the same thing. If any person has 
an idea he would like to become a Buddhist, he makes a great 
mistake, because the religions are alike in all essential respects. 
One great importance of the Oriental aspect of Theosophy is 
that it breaks down the wall of prejudice existing between the 
East and the West. Christianity has held the thought that 
the poor East would have no gospel unless the West carried it 
there, so the East has turned round and brought you its truth. 
The East is more privileged than the West, for, during several 
thousands of years, the East has represented the highest devel- 
opment of civilization. In the ensuing epochs the West will 
be the great center of spiritual activity. Theosophy is not an 
exotic here that belongs to another clime, but an indigenous 
plant, religion being the same in every age, but we are depend- 
ent on the East to teach us, in the way that children are 
dependent on those already educated, but every one is pre- 
pared to become a teacher in his turn, when competent. If the 
Mahatmas, chelas, and other mystics are our instructors in 
occult wisdom they have no prerogative that others do not 
possess, only to help others to become educated like them- 
selves, to prepare pupils to handle these mysteries and use this 
occult power aright, but only a few go in at this narrow gate, 
while many enter the ordinary gate of fashion. There is no 
reason why you should not find out all mysteries for yourselves, 
the only hindrance thereto being that it requires a kind of life 
many do not wish to live. They would not take so much time 
and trouble, or make so many sacrifices to attain this spiritual 
good, as did Kepler, Copernicus, or Galileo, to demonstrate 
any problem of nature, and yet they would not live an unhappy 
life in the acquisition of divine wisdom. The Light that ever 



50 



SHORT LESSONS IN THEOSOPHY. 



shines shows all the ways of wisdom to be ways of pleasantness 
and all her paths of peace. Whatever you have to give up is 
that which is really not worth having ; the pleasures of earth 
are counterfeit, the gold that glitters mere tinsel. Its acqui- 
sition is the outcome of human selfishness which is a vice. 
Self-culture can be consecrated to the highest ends. Subordi- 
nate all love of self to love of neighbor and of God. Work for 
the sake of Truth and for humanity. 

Ques. — How do the pure in heart see God? 

Ans. — " Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see 
God," said the Master, this sight of God meaning spiritual 
perception, or the discovery of the Divine Existence. Man is 
as invisible as God is, in whose image and likeness he is made ; 
the true man is the invisible man. What is God ? There 
must, necessarily, be a great deal of mystery concerning the 
Divine Indwelling Presence. All we know about God is in 
the higher realms of life, it is the higher consciousness that 
realizes there is an Infinite Good Being that controls and rules 
over all. Supposing every one who doubted concerning the 
existence of God could enter into that state of mind in which 
he was absolutely certain that everything was for the best, 
without a ripple of doubt passing through his mind, would he 
not be in a condition to actually see God with the eye of the 
soul, as an all-satisfying, all-consolatory reality, feeling sure 
everything was in the hand of infinite love and goodness, all 
vessels worked into port, piloted by a perfectly skillful and 
loving commander ? If this trust were perfect, how the mind 
would rest in it, and be free from misery of every kind. The 
soul would find realization of God. Reason, in a higher state 
of existence, develops as it never does here, it sees above and 



SHORT LESSONS IN THEOSOPHY. 



•51 



below as never before. Our horizon widens and our reason 
confirms and comprehends what our intuition previously appre- 
hended. When we find God in ourselves we shall be satisfied 
in His reflection in our own being ; when we find ourselves in 
Him then we shall be at peace because realizing our close 
relation to Deity. When we have positively found the soul, 
we find God, knowledge of a soul coming from the spiritual 
influx, of a power within us. There is more proof of the soul's 
immortality than there is proof on the side of any demonstrated 
science. 

Ques. — Will not Theosophical truth have a unitizing influ- 
ence on the nations of the earth ? 

Ans. — Theosophy meets one great need of the world to-day, 
that all nations should recognize their brotherhood, which 
unfortunately they do not ; they still follow in the track of 
ancient barbarians and look upon those, from whom they are 
separated by natural barriers, as foreigners, outside the order 
of soul and democracy of spirit, and thus the peace of the 
world and the unity of humanity is delayed. Nations contend 
with one another for territory or worldly possessions, for intel- 
lectual ideas and divers theologies, but avowedly spiritual 
struggles are not confined to the inhabitants alone, for, as Paul 
says, "we do not war with flesh and blood, but with princi- 
palities and powers," with unseen hosts. Christianity has far 
outgrown the recognition of a variety of spiritual influences 
continuously attending individuals' and nations, according to 
all old theories that every one has his attending influences, his 
household lares and penates ; not only so, but every form in 
nature had its representative in the unseen world, and every 
nation had its peculiar divinity. Jehovah was not the God of 



52 



SHORT LESSONS IN THEOSOPHY. 



the world, but the God of Israel, as Zeus was the God of the 
Greeks, and Jupiter of the Romans ; all early nations had their 
own spiritual hierarch devoted to their cause, and the people 
sacrificed oblations in their sanctuaries that this unseen power 
might fight their battles, their idea being of gods many and 
lords many. Therefore all earth religions were in a sense a 
form of Spiritualism, and with the recognition of spirits around 
them, higher or lower, to serve or to bless, there was also the 
conception of the Infinite in-dwelling and over-ruling Spirit, 
who most of all found His abiding place in the hearts and 
minds of humanity. While the Aryan race made much of 
spiritual communion, the peculiar trait of all Semitic people 
was the turning to the still small Voice of God that controlled 
them more than all the guiding spirits. The Assyrian religion 
blended both Aryan and Semitic characteristics, recognizing 
individual spiritual communion that attracted the interior recog- 
nition of the God of the soul, this dualism in religion producing 
the thought we find to-day, and the conception of God as 
purely authoritative. If any one in true Theosophy seeks for 
divine wisdom, he must arrive at the conclusion that all the 
nations of the earth have reached on the relation of God 
indwelling in humanity. There can be no prosperity till all 
nations outgrow their differences in one common harmony. 
Theosophy is a moral, ethical movement : as soon as we feel 
that we are one in spirit, we shall speak of one another as 
brothers, and feel in the department of soul as really one, we 
shall not then behave as if we were not all children of God. 
Ethical culture and moral reform must build the structure of 
universal freedom. 

Qtjes. — What is mortal and immortal mind ? 



SHORT LESSONS IX THEOSOPHY. 



58 



Ans. — The animal impulse, or animal soul, is the mortal 
mind. We cannot imagine a sensuous person to be very intel- 
lectual, or, if so, he is not intellectual in consequence of 
animality, but in spite of it. The animal impulse does not 
naturally seek expression in literature or art. The fifth and 
sixth principles however do harmonize. A person can, at one 
and the same time, have moral and intellectual nobility, or be 
equally engaged in benevoleuce, literature, and art, a dual 
expression of the soul, the human spirit manifesting itself as 
love and wisdom. The majority have only developed their 
fifth principle ; if they have no conception of the seventh, and 
only a glimmering consciousness of the sixth, they have not the 
understanding of the Truth, they may have creed, belief, or 
theory, yet all the ideas and opinions, when compared with 
knowledge, are as twilight to sunshine, they may be pure and 
ennobling but are not demonstrable. When the sixth principle 
is developed, through which the seventh can shine, we shall 
have no need that one shall teach us, we receive unction from 
the Holy One. What is our true immortal mind? Our 
rational, intellectual principle, that vigor of mind which ena- 
bles us to solve the great problems of life. The true Christ, 
as the true Buddha, is one equally developed in his intellectual 
and moral nature, the highest intellect and purest morality are 
jointly enshrined and infinitely unfolded. There is no true 
expression of the soul without this masculine and feminine 
development, the intellectual and the moral so perfectly one 
that they constitute the true spiritual marriage. The Buddha 
occupied in India the same relation to mankind that Jesus 
occupied 2000 years later in Palestine. While at long intervals 
vast cyclic periods intervene, you will find in about 600 years 



54 



SHORT LESSONS IN THEOSOPHY. 



great revivals come to an end, a greater revival in 2000 years, 
and the still grander cycle in 25,000 years. About 600 
years after Jesus, Mahomet inaugurated the faith of Islam, one 
of the great religious systems of the world to-day ; 600 years 
later the Waldenses and others proclaim a more spiritual form 
of Christianity. At the present time, there are indications of 
a cycle of a new life, a new dispensation on the earth. We 
can safely say that every 600 or 700 years some remarkable 
change takes place somewhere on the earth. The great ruler 
of the planet, the archangel, changes at that time. 

Ques. — What connection has Theosophy with metaphysical 
healing ? 

Ans. — Metaplrysical teaching is really Theosophy applied, 
in this respect, that it utilizes occult power for the beneficent 
interests of mankind. This metaphysical movement has come 
before the world through the direct action of those masters of 
the most secret order on earth. All principles of metaphysics 
are in the possession of Eastern wisdom, and it is only just to 
Theosophy and the wisdom of the East to make this statement. 
Mrs. Eddy says she got it from a study of the Bible. How did 
Dr. Quimby and others get it? It matters not. These flashes 
of light that have come to different minds have proceeded 
directly from the current of thought that always held these 
truths, which gives them to mankind as it is able to receive 
them. Those who get it from intuition, get it from God. 
Metaphysics and Theosophy are perfectly one ; Spiritualism 
has been, hitherto, an erratic manifestation of this power, 
which in its highest phases is Theosophy, in its lowest is 
nothing more than the grey magic of the East. No one can be 
a successful healer unless he lives a pure life, in conformity 



SHORT LESSONS IN THEOSOPHY. 



55 



with the teachings of Christ. By perfect devotion to spiritual 
truth and the good of humanity, all can exercise the power 
Christ taught to his children. Every healer, like the true 
Theosophist, endeavors to turn the attention of the patient 
from things natural to things spiritual, to the culture of the 
spirit, and the formation of higher relations with the psychic 
world, enabling him to inherit all things worth inheriting. 
Our external forms are imprinted with all the sand-grains of 
thought, they mirror the person's mind within as a faithful 
record, a true doomsday book, and we believe in the perfect 
regeneration of this body through psychical means, and that 
it can only be accomplished under the highest thought ; when 
the higher nature is appealed to, the higher nature drives out 
what the lower nature has secreted. The elixir of. life is not 
a drug, but the life that springs from the interior principle, the 
Logos, the divine Ego, the Life of the God in us. In the 
highest condition of society you will set out to heal no one, but 
as the sun radiates light and heat through all the universe, so 
will you, as every soul is eternal, perceive only good, be 
receptive to, and express only good, shedding your blessing 
everywhere. Then you can go nowhere without healing the 
sick, wherever you go you carry with you a beneficent influ- 
ence, dispensed as freely as the song of the bird or the perfume 
of the flower. We shall only develop into higher conditions as 
we do good, we can approximate healing another by being 
more in truth ourselves ; those in truth carry peace with them. 
Cultivate the higher principle for the good you can do ; all 
power is yours only when under the dominion of the Atma, in 
perfect harmony with the Divine Understanding. A meta- 
physical life is a battle and it is those who fight the battle that 



56 



SHORT LESSONS IN THEO SOPHY. 



win the prize. There is such a thing as soul-cure ; mind-eure 
is an adequate expression. It is spiritual illumination not 
physical healing which you practice. A metaphysical treat- 
ment closes the door that contacts with hell, and opens the 
door of heaven, it opens the window of a room, full of close, 
foul air and allows a fresh, cool, sweet breeze to flow in, to 
tranquilize and harmonize the apartment. This is what the 
thought does. When you affirm : "I am spirit, one with God, 
I am well in my interior, immortal being," when you thus 
relate yourself with the Infinite, you open a window you can 
never close. Sometimes there is a window open on to a most 
disagreeable place, then a metaphysical treatment shuts that 
window and opens another upon a bed of roses, upon thoughts 
of peace and harmony, with the celestial plains in sight. So 
metaphysical truth opens the avenues of the mind to the study 
of being, of living, studying, travelling in the right way, over- 
coming all discordant thought and entering upon our rightful 
heritage to eternal life and blessedness. So make your treat- 
ment an educator, develop a spiritual atmosphere by benevolent 
impulse, trust in God, rest in the Spirit, without perplexity. 
In giving yourself up to the spiritual tide, or influx, you are 
yielding to the Holy Ghost, which is better than to use your 
own mentality. When one treats in personal will he does him- 
self harm and becomes exhausted. Treatment coupled with 
doubt is worse than none at all, if agitated you do not leave all 
to God, you are giving wrong medicine, your thought, not 
God's thought. You cannot possibly fail, for it is God's will 
that every one should be well and happy. The true The- 
osophist has seven senses ; Spiritual Science undertakes to 
develop the sixth and seventh senses, through which you come 



SHORT LESSONS IN THEOSOPHY. 



57 



into relation with the astral and the spiritual world. We 
should consider that in dealing with Spiritual Science we are 
studying everything there is, the only solvent of life's mystery. 

Ques. — Does Theosophy recognize astrology ? 

Ans. — Astrology and alchemy are distinct sciences and the 
spiritual correspondence of astronomy and chemistry, The- 
osophy teaches that you were born when certain influences 
were in the ascendant, because of the all that your Karma 
brought with you from past experience, which caused you to 
be conceived just when you were. Our " brooding stars " are 
our relation with all past Karma. The perfectly unfolded being 
is represented astrologically in the twelfth chapter of Revela- 
tions, as the woman clothed with the sun, in contrast to Adam 
and Eve who were represented in the garden as naked, being 
ignorant and at the same time innocent, a state of earliest 
infancy. Their adoption of clothing signified growth in knowl- 
edge and experience. Eve, of innocent, perfect beauty, wore 
no crown ; chaste as marble, pure as ice, with beauty unparal- 
leled, she was still no queen, no conqueror. She was the 
representative woman, in perfect and infantile innocence, but 
one to whom you could not go for advice or instruction. She 
had no knowledge of the world, or its trials. While fair and 
pure she was at the same time a child, she could not serve as 
teacher, counsellor, or guide. Now look at the other picture 
— a woman standing in regal glory, clothed with the sun, the 
moon beneath her feet, a woman with all the chastity and 
perfection that could be imagined of the pure Edenic virgin, 
yet combined with all commanding knowledge, intelligence 
joined with purity, love with wisdom. Between the two, a 
great gulf is fixed. The Edenic woman has developed into the 



58 



SHORT LESSONS IN THEOSOPHY. 



radiant creature of the Apocalypse. Eve represents the sus- 
ceptible person always taking on conditions, when stung by the 
serpent she was utterly unprotected, while the light that sur- 
rounds the Apocalyptic woman, the armor of the Spirit which 
clothed her from head to foot would paralyze the serpent. 
Jesus placed before us, as our goal, the glorious condition that 
is still beyond us, the conjunction of the dove's harmlessness 
with the serpent's wisdom. Now what is the esoteric signifi- 
cance of this astronomical figure ? The sun corresponds to the 
spiritual nature, the moon to the physical or animal nature, and 
the planets to the different intellectual powers. Why is it 
astrology tells us in terse phrase : " the wise man rules his 
stars ? " The true Theosophist, in whom Sophia, or divine 
wisdom, is regnant, rules his own intellectual powers, or com- 
pels them as servants to the sun, or soul — the Atma — as the 
visible solar sun rules the planets which revolve about him. 
Your soul is the sun in you, and the you is the sun. The moon 
represents the animal nature, a mere satellite to a planet, which 
is subject to the intellect, while both mind and sense are gov- 
erned by the spiritual nature. This is the true planetary 
correspondence of certain powers within one's self. While the 
planets revolve in space, they continually discharge electricity 
into the atmosphere, their recent perihelion has had a great 
deal to do with the tumult and unrest of human society, all 
over the world, but, all these influences being mortal, they 
afflict only those on the mortal plane. When we cultivate our 
soul power, when we are clad in armor from head to foot, there 
are no arrows, or bullets, that can pierce our armor. When we 
live in the spirit, and by constant at-one-ment with the interior 
life, we clothe ourself with the sun, subjugate the moon (all 



SHORT LESSONS IN THEOSOPHY. 



59 



carnal passions) beneath our feet, and wear a diaclem of twelve 
stars, signifying the perfect development of all our powers, the 
twelve stars referring to all zodiacal influences, a rounded 
development which the perfect being wears as a crown, while 
encased in a sheen of perfect light. When we live in the light 
of spiritual truth we become more and more invulnerable, no 
matter what hydra-headed monster makes war upon us, our 
heel being cased in perfect armor blunts the serpent's fangs, 
and the spiritual armor with which we are clothed upon, not 
only protects us but radiates an atmosphere which purifies the 
air for every one else to breathe, generates a counter-influence 
of good that destroys evil, as light dispels darkness. 



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